After a sluggish 2009 and a year of adjustment in 2010, home sales in
the town of Palm Beach have been strong this year, according to the Palm Beach Daily News. Seven Palm Beach
homes or sites have been sold for prices of $17 million or more,
according to data from the Palm Beach County Clerk’s office. “This
season has been a very good sign that we’re getting back to normal after
a few bumpy years,” said Palm Beach Board of Realtors President Jeffrey
Cloninger of Jeffrey A. Cloninger and Associates. [more]

140 El Mirasol was another pricey sale, at $6.7 million

The $18.5 million sale of singer Jimmy Buffett’s home at 540 S. Ocean Boulevard in Palm Beach led the town’s priciest sales [more]

140 El Mirasol was another pricey sale, at $6.7 million

The $18.5 million sale of singer Jimmy Buffett’s home at 540 S. Ocean Boulevard in Palm Beach led the town’s priciest sales [more]

The Real Deal asked a number of residential real estate agents what the strangest thing is that they’ve seen at an open house. The responses ran the gamut from a man crawling into a bed to check out the mattress and dozing off to a broker having to basically carry a client off a railing-less bridge to being chased by a wild boar while showing houses.

Here is a sampling of what the agents have encountered:

Andy Weiser, Coldwell Banker, Fort Lauderdale: There is the ordinary finding, the couple having sex in the bedroom. Every realtor worth his salt has seen that. That happens all the time. Some people do that as part of their whole fantasy thing. On a more serious note, it would have to be the guy who crawled into the bed to see what it would be like, and then fell asleep. That’s one of the more bizarre things. Click here for more. Compiled by Alexander Britell
[more]

Last January, only one home sold in Palm Beach, heralding one of the worst real estate sales seasons on record.
That sole early 2009 sale served as a telling indicator of a winter real estate season in which Palm Beach residents staying put, rather than buying and selling multimillion-dollar properties like a varsity sport. When Palm Beachers refer to “the Season,” they’re speaking not only of the many charity balls that draw wealthy part-time residents who want a tony place in the sun, but also the high-end house trading that goes on in the winter months.
This January, two single-family homes sold — for $3 million and $8 million — and nine homes went under contract, generating cautious optimism among local realtors and analysts, along with some misgivings, according to data compiled from real estate brokerages on the island.

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For a third time this year, the Palm Beach office of the Corcoran
Group, looking for ways to move mansions in a slow market, brokered a
deal so that two clients could swap mansions for an even $6 million. “Trading houses is a creative solution in this market,” said Bill Yahn,
director of sales for Corcoran in Palm Beach. The swap earlier this
month is an extreme example of how to get business going when the
market is nearly moribund, he said. “Swapping is a way to get the
maximum values, the highest and best price in a market where there are
no takers,” Yahn said. He noted that his company has only done swaps when both homes are local and both parties are working “internally with Corcoran.” [more]